The biggest accomplishment, in racial terms, for Barack Obama was being elected. He had to overcome his blackness to be elected. He climbed the Mt. Everest of American politics, becoming an historic first.

If you want to put somebody down, analogize them to the n - - .

What people should do is explain to their friends, to their neighbors how they feel when they confront the word n - - and why they feel the way they feel.

Go back and take a look at what some black writers were saying in the 1820s, the 1830s. They make mention of how some white people would tell their children, if you don't behave, we're going to put you in the n - - seat. If you don't behave, we are going to make you sit with the n - - s. That's why we know that, by then, the word had become a slur.

I was born in Columbia in 1954, the year the Supreme Court invalidated racial segregation in public schools. I visited frequently but did not live there.

In elite, primarily white institutions, there are many blacks who have white wives. So much so that sometimes there is almost the assumption that I would be married to a white woman.

In 1619, when there are reports about the first blacks brought to British North America, they are referred to as N-I-G-G-U-H-S. Well, it doesn't seem that that was meant in a derogatory way. It seems merely descriptive.